6 Reasons Every Company Should Use Content Marketing

The world of marketing is constantly changing and evolving. Practices that were common place five or ten years ago are now outdated. In the past several years, a trend has emerged that has revolutionized the way companies connect with consumers. A recent survey shows that 78% of Chief Marketing Officers now believe that future of marketing lies in content marketing.

Content marketing is the creation of valuable content for the purpose of attracting consumers to a product or service. The content may be about the product itself, or related issues that will help the customer catch the vision of the company. Content marketing is most commonly found on company blogs, social media, videos and other mediums. The following are 6 reasons your company should be involved in content marketing. Some of the most common forms of content of content marketing are infographics, video, memes, interactive graphics, and more.

One of the reasons content marketing has become so popular is because it has the potential to connect with customers on a deeper level. Suppose a customer is searching for a product online. The best way to attract consideration of your product is by creating content that will help your product stand out. Additionally, if a customer wants to stay up to date on company’s activities, including new products and features, smart content on a social media page creates that possibility.

2. Competing with big name competitors

Not long ago, in order to lead a successful marketing campaign, companies needed to have lots of money. If you didn’t have the resources it was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to compete with the big players in the industry. Today the playing field more level. Of course your company might not be able to run a high scale television campaign, but in the realm of content marketing, the only advantage is being able to write or design quality content. If you do a good job of writing interesting content, geared towards a specific audience, even a small company can rival a big corporation.

One example is CorePower, a Denver-based yoga chain. The company decided to forgo traditional TV and printed ads and instead focus on digital marketing and word of mouth recommendations. Online videos provide customers quality content. Although they started small, CorePower grew to be the nations largest yoga chain through consistent and high quality content.

3. Inbound traffic to your website

One of the keys to success for Internet marketers is to simply get people to a website. Because so much comes up with a simple Google search, this can be challenging. Interesting content is simply another medium that can filter Internet browsers to your cite. In order for this to work, content creators need to effectively use calls to action. This may simply mean integrating the phrase, “visit our website for more information”.

4. Creating trust

By giving free and valuable content to the general public, their trust in a company will increase. Many companies focus on creating content that doesn’t necessarily beat over the head of a potential customer the message, “buy my product”. Publicly valuable content helps potential customers realize that a company genuinely cares about more than sales.

One successful example is Vivint, whose corporate blog focuses on informing customers about how they are giving back to the community. They offer brief explanations of various service projects and charity organizations they have partnered with. These blog posts aren’t necessarily related to the company’s home security and automation products, but rather reveal their general concern for the people they serve.

5. Word of mouth

Interesting content can spread like wildfire. People can share links to blogs and videos on their own personal social media page or blog. This will in turn generate more followers. In fact, interesting content is one of the top 3 reasons people follow a specific brand on social media. When it comes to recommending products to others, 6 in 10 Facebook or Twitter users are more likely to recommend a brand that they personally follow.

The company Virgin Mobile recently released Virgin Mobile Live, a social site that frequently publishes music, memes and apps. The content is available across a variety of social communities, including Facebook, BuzzFeed, Twitter and Instagram. The company benefits from over 1 million unique views per month and 50,000 shares on social media.

6. Long-term benefits

As much as marketing is in flux, one thing that will never change is the importance of communicating clearly to consumers. Strong content doesn’t flow with the trends, but is useful and important regardless of when a consumer reads it. Such content will continue to benefit companies years into the future.